


run away (like it was yesterday)

by Dragonsandducks



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Bisexual Jaskier | Dandelion, GIVE ME BACKSTORY OR GIVE ME DEATH, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Jaskier is around 16-17 in this, Kinda?, Road Trips, Sad Jaskier | Dandelion, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22308088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonsandducks/pseuds/Dragonsandducks
Summary: Jaskier runs away when he thinks he's ready. Not a moment sooner and not a moment later.He brings nothing but a lute and the clothes on his back. He doesn't need anything else.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	run away (like it was yesterday)

**Author's Note:**

> title from "bulletproof heart" by my chemical romance (yeah i know)
> 
> anyway i???? love??? jaskier??? 
> 
> what! audrey! you fell in love with ANOTHER comic relief character and want them to be sad, actually? this is so unlike you! /s

Jaskier runs away when he thinks he's ready. Not a moment sooner and not a moment later. 

He brings nothing but a lute and the clothes on his back. He doesn't need anything else.

* * *

He is eighteen. At least, that's what he tells everyone— age is the least important thing right now, he needs _food._ And he needs money to get food, and he doesn't really know how to get money, so he sings on the street and leaves his lute case open with the hopes of picking up spare change.

He doesn't get anything. The people of the town vary— they either stare at him like he's a fool or ignore him completely, and he isn't sure what he'd prefer.

He tells everyone his name is Jaskier, just Jaskier, not Julian, because he's _not_ going to have this ruined by someone putting the pieces of his past together and dragging him back home to his parents. 

If they even want him back. 

Eventually, he ends up in a tavern, and people are throwing food at him instead of money, but hey— food is what he needs, so he guesses this is just cutting out the middle man. 

* * *

There are lovers, and they come and go without fanfare. Only one really matters— his name is Noli and he leaves town before Jaskier can even say goodbye and it takes him three days to actually feel like life is worth living again.

He stops paying much attention to _who_ they are after that. No one wants to listen to a bard with a broken heart, and he's pure shit at writing breakup songs. Better to sing something that can at least give the illusion of happiness. 

Of satisfaction in life. 

Jaskier does not feel satisfied. 

For the first time since he ran away, he starts to feel lost.

* * *

He does, quite literally, get lost not soon after. The forest is dark and every tree looks the same— there are _monsters_ in these woods, and he doesn't fancy a run in with them, so he forces himself to stay in one place. 

The stars peek through the tops of the trees, and Jaskier tries to remember where the constellations he learned in school are. 

He can't. Most of what he remembered from school has been replaced— with chords and with song lyrics and with faces and experiences he'll never remember. With another broken heart, this time her name is Benea and he _swore_ he wouldn't get attached but she was just so _beautiful_ and Jaskier's never been good at controlling his emotions.

Jaskier hears an animal howl somewhere deeper in the forest, and he pulls his lute closer in case he has to use it as a weapon.

The wind blows through the trees, and Jaskier closes his eyes and tries to remember anything that's made him happy in the last year.

He comes up empty. The memories of love are tainted by heartbreak, memories of freedom tainted by danger, memories of his past tainted by their own nature.

The creature howls again but it is cut off— Jaskier holds his lute like a weapon as he approaches, and just barely misses the white-haired man carrying the thing's head away from his bloody body. 

Jaskier knows he should be scared, but all he can think is, _this would make a good song_. 

* * *

After he makes the mistake of... _spending some quality time_ with some lord's wife, he hides out underneath the hay of a nearby stable. The son of the owner finds him almost immediately, but he doesn't send Jaskier away.

He stays, and they talk, and Jaskier had _sworn_ he'd never fall in love again, just lust—

But his voice is soft and his eyes are gorgeous and dammit, maybe this time it'll work out.

* * *

Mikol doesn't stick around, of course, because Jaskier thinks it's possible he ruins everything he touches, and every time he plays in a tavern he pities the patrons and the owners because they don't know what'll happen because he's been there. 

It gives him a reason, or at least an excuse, to leave towns faster than he enters them and never get attached to anything. 

He is eighteen, he thinks, though he lost track of the dates a long time ago. He _feels_ eighteen. 

Well. He feels a like he's old enough to be dying, but it can't have been that long, so eighteen it is. 

His songs don't go over well— people don't _get_ his humor, and everyone who does inevitably breaks his heart. He gets used to slipping out the backdoor of taverns once he's got enough money for tomorrow's meals.

It isn't perfect, not in the slightest, but it's the life he chose. Whether he likes it or not, he's stuck with it.

* * *

The new abortion song doesn't go over well with the audience, but that's okay, because there is a man in the back who looks _far_ more interesting than anyone else he's met in his life.

A Witcher.

And he knows he should be scared, but all he can think is, _this would make a good song_.


End file.
